Discover the best practices in taking dynamic photos of your listings using these top 10 tips from Home Staging Resource.  Check out this month's article from HomeStagingResource.com : 

Top Ten Picture Tips for Making Every Picture Count!

Great pictures of the interiors of the home is so important in this digital age where home buyers are ONLINE shopping for homes and no longer going door to door.  Most people do not put enough time and energy into these photos but consider them more of an afterthought which is great because that means that those who do will compete easily in slowing market.  In today's slowing housing economy having a beautifully, professionally staged home is critical in order to compete.  Having enticing photos of the home online for buyers to find is imperative!

Here are just a few picture taking pointers to remember when taking those "After" or interior shots:

1. Go For Volume - With digital cameras, you can never have enough photos so feel free to snap away!  Plant yourself in every corner of the room and take the shot.  Don't simply stand there and shoot, get low or high (on stairs or chair) in order to produce a more interesting picture that draws the buyers eye.
2. Turn On the Lights - Every light in the room must be on and your blinds or drapes should be open!  Indoor light has a photographic quality all it's own that adds warmth and color which adds a rich effect that emotionally draws in a buyer.
3. Turn Off the Flash - Take a picture with a flash but ALWAYS take one without the flash which will usually be your inevitable first choice shot.  Why?  Because the flash adds a hard light quality whereas removing the flash forces your camera to draw in as much natural and artificial light adding a warm, comfortable glow to the shot which buyers can respond to.  REMEMBER - You must have a steady hand otherwise there will be blur.  A photographers trick is to steady your arms against your body, specifically, pushing your upper arms into your chest as you shoot.  At the same time, spread your legs wide so as to have a tripod effect.  Another trick is to lean against a wall or door frame to steady your shot.
4. Always Review Every Shot - Digital cameras allow us to review the shot in the viewfinder after it has been taken so make sure you do this.  A camera sees quite differently than us!  We are taught to be extra critical of what the camera sees so many times you will catch things in the picture that you wouldn't have noticed otherwise ie bed sheet sticking out, cluttered counter top or faulty wall hanging.
5. Go Green - Savvy Realtors know that the trick to taking a great back yard shot is to shoot from behind some greenery back at the house at the far corner of the yard.  This not only produces an interesting angle of the entire yard but many times adds a fringe of green leaf/plant in the edge of the shot as to give the viewer a sense of peering in from behind foliage.
6. Don't Center Everything - Create interest by positioning focal points to the left or right rather than center.
7. Shoot for Magic Hours - An hour or two after the sun rises and before it sets is when the light is it's softest, warmest and most flattering.
8. Avoid Backlighting - Make sure the light from windows is coming from the side or behind you to avoid glare.  This tip is critical and most often the one we see people not following on Realtor.com!
9. Shoot From Different Vantage Points - Squat low or climb the stairs to take a variety of shots from different angles...it's digital so shoot away!
10. It's In The Details - Look at every detail and photograph some of the emotional connection points in each room to "zoom" in on staging effects.
11. Touch It Up - Use a photo optimizer like Adobe Photoshop to put the finishing touches on your photos.  (see my friend Craigs tips on this)

 

The lucky winner of this year's raffle basket was Gayle Georgetti of Keller Williams New City.  Congratulations to Gayle!!  For those of you who attended the O&R Realtor Convention on April 2nd, I hope you had a wonderful day.  Thanks to all of you who stopped by our booth this year.  It was an exciting day and great to see so many new faces. 

 

 

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